


Never Yours To Keep

by wordsandstars



Series: Accidentally [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Scott McCall, Canon-Typical Violence, Emissary Stiles Stilinski, F/M, Jackson is a douche, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, McCall Pack, Pack Dynamics, Pack Politics, Past Abuse, Werewolf Lydia, jesus fucking christ what even are my summaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-17 01:57:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1369699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsandstars/pseuds/wordsandstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over a year after Lydia comes home to Beacon Hills with Stiles, Jackson, her ex-boyfriend who abused and bit her against her will, comes to Beacon Hills with the rest of his pack. Looking for her.<br/>Never mind the fact she has a mate in Stiles, and a pack in the rest of them.</p>
<p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1219972">He Meets Her Completely By Accident</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Yours To Keep

**Author's Note:**

> A massive thank you to [Sare](http://osbrien.tumblr.com) who ficrec-ed HMHCBA, and then beta read this for me, and who helped me with tons of the details! Can't thank her enough, honestly. She's the reason this is as early as it is!

Lydia’s phone is ringing when Stiles comes into their apartment, two grocery bags in each hand. It’s been their system for the past six months that they’ve lived in New York together, the shopping; Stiles only has one class on Thursdays, and Lydia only goes in for an hour. She’ll come home if she has something pressing to do, and if she doesn’t, she’ll come grocery shopping with him. More often than not, he shops alone, because any kind of work for her is pressing. He doesn’t mind all that much, because she usually gets impatient shopping anywhere that isn’t a mall anyways.

“Lyds?” he calls.

“Can you get that?” she calls back, from down the hallway. Stiles guesses she’s in the second bedroom, the one that has a fold-out couch for guests but also has two desks, their computers, and a wall of shelves that are stuffed with books. It’s their work place, and she spends most of her time in it. So does he, actually.

“Yeah,” he says, dumping the bags on the kitchen counter and just catching the phone before it goes to voicemail.

“Hello?”

“Oh, hey, I’m looking for Lydia?” a voice asks on the other end, sounding surprised to hear a man’s voice.

“Uh, yeah, she’s—” Stiles stops. “Why?”

Lydia comes into view as he’s saying this, and leans her hip into the wall. Her hair’s falling in haphazard curls over her shoulders and down her back, and she’s wearing one of his shirts, tucked neatly into a skirt that just brushes the skin of her thighs. Stiles really likes Thursdays, because he almost always gets to come home to her looking that beautiful.

He sighs happily.

“Because I want to talk to her,” the guy on the other end says, impatient, jolting Stiles out of his thoughts. “She should know me. I’m Danny.”

Lydia’s eyes widen at this. Being a werewolf, it’s not a surprise she can pick up both sides of the phone conversation.

“Speaker,” she mouths to Stiles, and he hastens to obey.

“Danny?” Lydia asks, coming closer. She sounds cool and calm, but Stiles knows better. As her mate, he can feel what she’s feeling, mostly, and right now there’s a swirl of anxiety, confusion, and fear running through her.

He stretches his free hand out to her without even thinking about it. She grabs it, and the tension in her shoulders lets out a little. She smiles gratefully at him, and moves forward until she’s pressed against him.

“Lydia!” the guy, Danny, exclaims. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I actually found you.”

“Yeah, how did you?” she asks. Her tone is clipped, void of emotion so as to not give anything away.

“You’re on NYU’s employee list online,” Danny replies. “After I knew where you were, it wasn’t too hard to get your number.”

“Okay,” Lydia says, and now she feels a little pissed off too. “Why?”

There’s a pause. “Jackson wanted me to find you,” he says finally.

Stiles goes stiff. Lydia just sighs, as if that was what she was expecting. “Goodbye, Danny,” is all she says, and then reaches out and hangs up the phone, which is still in Stiles’ outstretched palm. She takes it, tosses it to the couch, and then focuses on him.

She moves until her head’s pillowed against his chest, her arms around him. His arms come up to sweep around her waist robotically.

“Danny is Jackson’s best friend,” Lydia tells him quietly. “He’s also really good with computers. Hacking into them. Also finding people.”

His arms tighten. “Do you know if he was part of his pack or not?”

Lydia shakes her head. “I don’t think so. He was never a jerk, for one. He was always the one who stopped Jackson before he went too far. ”

She doesn’t elaborate, but Stiles guesses she’s talking about when he hit her. She doesn’t like to talk about it, and neither does he, really. He doesn’t like how it makes either of them feel.

“He was the only one willing to drive me to hospital if I needed it,” she adds. “He was the one part of Jackson I actually missed.” She laughs a little.

Stiles bends down and presses a kiss into her temple, choosing to ignore the first part of what she’d said. She leans into him for a second, and then pulls away and heads into the kitchen.

By next weekend, they’ve all but forgotten about it. Danny hasn’t called back again, seemingly having dropped it. Allison is in New York for the weekend, because they’re nearing finals for everyone, and while Allison and Scott study better without each other to distract them, Allison studies better with people.

Stiles and Lydia, meanwhile, are both too focused on their work to get distracted by the other. Allison envies them.

Currently, they’ll spread out in the living room, which has been turned into a study pit. Stiles has dragged his desk out from the spare bedroom into the living room, just far enough in that he’s not blocking the hallway. Allison’s textbooks and body alike are spread out on the floor, from the coffee table to where carpet switches to tile for the kitchen. Lydia too is on the floor, leaning against the couch and her own study supplies spread out amongst the coffee table in front of her and the cushions behind her.

When the doorbell rings, Stiles has the easiest time extracting himself from his area, so he opens the door. He’s already a little suspicious, because the buzzer didn’t go off and he didn’t let anyone up.

Standing in the hallway is a guy with darkish skin and darker hair, who looks a little taller than Stiles. His hands are in the pockets of his windbreaker, and he has an easy half-smile on his face.

Stiles only has the two open for about two seconds before there’s a small redhead between him and the stranger. She’s tense, which he can see, and angry and a little confused and hurt, which he can feel.

“So I take it this is Danny, then,” he says. He hears Allison come up behind him.

Danny lifts a hand. “Hi,” he says.

Lydia gives a small laugh that’s as cold and brittle as ice. “I should have known you’d be able to track me down.”

Danny shrugs. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

If Stiles thought Lydia’s first laugh was like ice, this one is cold enough to make someone go hypothermic. “Really,” she drawls. “And I’m supposed to believe you?”

Stiles leans forward and rests his chin on Lydia’s shoulder. “Heartbeat, Lyds,” he reminds her, barely even a whisper under his breath.

She stills, and he can practically see her open up to the sounds of Danny’s heartbeat.

“Say it again,” she says, sounding calm but feeling anything but.

“Jackson doesn’t know I’m here,” Danny repeats. “All he knows is I called, and you hung up. I told him it wasn’t long enough to find you. I just didn’t tell him I’d found an apartment with your name on the lease.”

“Steady,” she whispers to Stiles. He kisses her cheek, and then leans back towards Allison, leaving her free to do what she wants.

“Who is he?” Allison whispers in Stiles’ ear as she leans forward too.

“Old friend,” Stiles whispers back. He leaves out the ‘of Jackson’s’ part.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Danny says after a minute of silence from Lydia. “Jackson said you just ran off.”

Lydia scoffs, Stiles snorts, and he can practically feel Allison’s eyebrows go up. “Yes,” Lydia drawls. “I ran off, after he violated me and attacked me, and then he chased me for hours after that.”

Danny blinks at her.

“I think Jackson might have left that part out,” Stiles says, and Lydia huffs, half with amusement, half with annoyance.

“He might have,” Danny mutters in reply, rolls his eyes. “He misses you though.”

Lydia rolls her eyes. “He misses controlling me,” she replies, reaching a hand back to grab Stiles’ before either one of them can even start to get worked up.

Danny catches the movement, and eyes their hands. Understanding registers in his eyes, and then they flick up to Stiles this time.

“You must be who answered the phone,” he says.

Stiles nods. “I’m Stiles. This is Allison,” he says, tilting his head back towards her. She raises a hand in a wave.

Danny nods at both of them, and shuffles uncomfortably.

“I have to go,” he says finally. “ I just wanted to see if I had the right place. It was good seeing you, Lydia.”

“You too,” she says after a beat. It’s only until after the door closes between them that she slumps into it, sliding downwards until she’s on the floor. Stiles doesn’t hesitate to join her. By the time he’s pressed to her side, Allison’s on the ground too.

“That was interesting,” she says.

Stiles and Lydia agree. After a few minutes of recovery for Lydia, they all end up back in their own personal study areas.

They treat it like it never happened. Allison tells Scott, though, because it’s impossible to keep anything from your mate, and Scott asks Stiles about it, but he says everything’s fine, so the subject is dropped.

Finals come and go less than two months later, and then, shockingly and suddenly, they’re all graduating. Not everyone can make it to everyone else’s ceremonies, but there’s at least one pack member at each. Lydia spent the year in New York doing algorithms, working side by side with one of the math professors, so she’s there, of course, for Stiles’. His dad and Melissa are both there too, as are Scott and Allison. Stiles and Lydia travel north with Scott to Quebec to see Allison graduate. Melissa goes to Isaac’s too, and Derek goes to all those of his original betas, and which are the only ones he can get flights to in time.

When they finally end up all back in Beacon Hills with most of them as new college graduates, they drag out pillows and blankets and foam bedding and sleep in a pile in the living room in celebration of the fact that over half of them are out of college for a while.

Scott still has years left if he wants to be a vet, Boyd has more for becoming a doctor, and Cora has undergrad classes to do.

Summer and fall both pass peacefully. Stiles finally has enough time to start training with Deaton so he can be Scott’s official emissary, so he spends most of his days at the animal clinic with Deaton and Scott. Lydia goes sometimes, hangs out in the backroom with them and reads Deaton’s seemingly endless supply of dusty old textbooks. Lately, she’s taken to translating the various bestiaries the pack has in their general vicinity into English from, more often than not, Archaic Latin. It seems to be a popular language amongst bestiary authors.

Stiles, in addition to the emissary training, is also taking magic lessons from Deaton. “Magic isn’t necessary to be an emissary,” Deaton tells him, “but it certainly helps, and I think you’d be good at it.”

He is. Scarily good, in fact. The spark he was once told he had burns under the care he gives it, and he whips through lessons and spells with frighteningly skilled precision.

Lydia has to start watching what she does in bed with him, because anything too wild and the walls end up shaking when he comes. And not just the walls of their room. The walls of the whole house.

Lydia was legitimately concerned for Erica when a blushing Stiles told them why the structural integrity of the house might have been damaged; she fell off of the back of the couch laughing.

By winter, Stiles is over halfway through his training with Deaton, and has better control of his magic. All of the pack that’s still doing school is back, at the college one town over from Beacon Hills. It’s late November, and the pack are all whacked out from a day of Christmas shopping. When someone knocks on the door, sharply, Stiles is the only one willing to get up to open it.

“Oh good, got the right house,” a cocky voice says. Lydia’s eyes shoot open and she practically catapults herself off of the couch and into the entryway. She’s also pretty sure she kicked Boyd in the face, but she doesn’t care.

“Stiles,” she says, in a voice chock full of fake calm and real urgency. “Shut the door.”

Jackson puts out a hand to stop the swinging door before it can even go any more than two inches. He smirks at her.

“Nice to see you too, Lydia.”

She snarls at him in response, eyes flashing gold and fangs sneaking past her lips.

Scott and Allison come to stand behind her as recognition flares in Stiles’ features. He locks eyes with Scott, and they move at the same time, Scott going to the door and Stiles back to Lydia. Whether or not her panic is showing on her face, it’s all too evident for him.

He pulls her against her, doing his best to quell her panic. Even if his own—which is, granted, mainly for her—is evident to her too.

At the door, Scott doesn’t even have a chance to say anything before Jackson’s talking.

“Jackson Whittemore,” he says by way of introduction. He holds his hand and gives Scott a patronizing grin. “Alpha.”

“Same here,” Scott says, unimpressed. He doesn’t shake Jackson’s hand. “Scott McCall.”

“Oh, I know who you are,” Jackson replies. “And I know who he is,” he continues, tilting his head at Stiles. He gives Lydia a smile while he’s at it. She gives him another snarl. “You guys have made quite a name for yourselves.”

“Danny told you I was with her, didn’t he?” Stiles says.

“Technically, Ethan did,” Jackson says. “I didn’t even know Danny’d seen you until he told Ethan and Ethan told me.”

“Why would Danny tell Ethan?” Lydia asks.

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Jackson feigns surprise. “They’re mates.” He returns his gaze to Scott. “You gonna let me in?”

Scott looks him up and down. “No,” he says firmly. “I’m not.”

Jackson’s expression hardens just slightly. “Fine,” he says eventually. “Why don’t I just take Lydia and go, then.”

Stiles’ grip on her tightens, and so does hers on him. Scott’s eyes flash red. “She’s not your beta.”

“She’s not your anything,” Stiles says. With a little maneuvering, he untangles himself from Lydia and goes to stand next to Scott. Allison grabs Lydia’s hand.

Scott breathes out heavily through his nose. “If you want to stay in the territory, we’ll have to meet to work out some kind of agreement.”

“But you’re not going to be coming back here,” Stiles adds, and Scott nods.

Jackson looks unimpressed. “Fine.” Then he walks away. Scott closes the door behind him.

“Stiles,” Allison calls. He looks back to the two girls, and the rest of the pack now crowded into the hallway. “She’s shaking.”

Stiles darts forward, getting his arms around Lydia. She presses her face into his chest, slowly brings up her arms to grip at his shirt with shaking fingers.

“You said he wouldn’t find me,” she whispers, and his knees almost buckle.

“I said he wasn’t going to be able to control you and he won’t,” he promises fiercely into her hair. “He’s not going to touch you. He’s not going to come anywhere near you.”

He feels it when she starts to believe him, both with her body relaxing against his and her anxiety slowly washing away until it’s replaced by exhaustion.

“Can we go upstairs?” she asks, quietly. She’s slumping against him even as she speaks.

“Yup,” he says, bending down. He kisses her quickly on his way to getting her legs out from underneath her, and she doesn’t protest when he picks her up and cradles her against him. Stiles knows the rest of the pack is standing worriedly in the hall, and he does his best to show them a reassuring face when he heads up the stairs with Lydia.

There’s nothing from any of Jackson’s pack for two days, and then Lydia gets a text from Danny’s phone that clearly isn’t Danny. Instead, it’s Jackson, telling Scott where to meet him.

“Please don’t go,” Lydia pleads with Stiles.

“I’m his emissary,” he says, like an apology. “You know I have to.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to want to,” she mutters, fussing with his shirt to avoid either of them seeing her hands shake.

“Anything happens and I shove wolfsbane up his nose,” he promises, patting his pocket. Lydia wrinkles her nose at it, but she looks assured.

She kisses him, slowly, until she’s feeling a little better about all this, and then releases him. “Be careful,” she says.

“I will,” he promises.

Scott kisses Allison on the cheek as he passes her on his way to the door, and she catches his hand for a fleeting second before his fingers slip out of her grasp. He flashes her a reassuring smile, and she returns it.

Lydia wishes she could be as calm about it as Allison seems to be.

She watches from the window as Scott and Stiles get into the jeep and drive off. Derek comes up beside her, and says,

“He’ll be fine.”

“How can you be sure?” she says, keeping her voice even and calm, even though she’s anything but.

“Because he’s with Scott,” Derek says. “And you’ve never seen Stiles fight.”

Lydia lets a breath out of her nose, forces her eyes to stay green and her nails to stay the perfect ovals she pisses Stiles off by always filing them into. He’s right, after all; despite all the horror-riddled stories about what the pack’s gone through, Beacon Hills has been peaceful during her time here. There’s been no reason for fighting. She’s never seen any of the pack against any kind of enemy.

Lydia’s been trained for fights, too, and she’s seen Stiles fight then, little sparring matches against Allison or one of the wolves, but she knows he holds back during those.

That’s another reason she’s nervous about this. Anger flows through Stiles, pulses beneath his skin. It shows in his eyes, when he gets pushed a little too far, or even just in the slam of their bedroom door or a cupboard. She doesn’t know where it came from; maybe from being always talked to when his mother was sick, maybe from all the times he’s been assumed as weak. Maybe from everything he’s been through, everything he’s seen the people he loves go through.

 She’s not sure she wants Stiles around Jackson with that.

At least, not without her there to witness it.

Stiles isn’t sure whether or not it’s a good thing Jackson’s chosen meeting place for them is a Starbucks. On one hand, it means he probably isn’t looking for a fight. On the other, it means Stiles probably won’t be able to punch him in the face.

Inside, Jackson’s annoying face is nowhere to be seen. Stiles is about to suggest they leave and force him out of Beacon Hills the next time they see him, but before he can, a young Asian woman who’s about their age waves at them. Stiles catches Scott’s eye, who shrugs, so they head over.

“Jackson’s running late,” the young woman says as they sit. “I’m Kira.”

“Are you his emissary?” Stiles asks.

“Not really,” Kira says. “I’m just the closest thing in the pack to one.” She leans a little closer to them, lowers her voice. “I’m a Kitsune.”

Stiles’ eyebrows raise in surprise while Scott’s furrow in confusion. After all, he doesn’t spend hours upon hours researching, which involves reading and rereading bestiaries until he can’t blink without his eyes burning.

“Trickster spirit,” he tells Scott. “Sort of like a werefox, except not really. You could probably see something on her in wolf form.”

Kira gives him a small smile, one of respect. He doesn’t return it until he asks, “You’re not a Nogitsune, right?” and she shakes her head and replies, “Thunder.”

Stiles nods and Scott looks even more confused, but he diligently flashes his eyes red, and his face lights up as they fade back to brown.

“That’s so cool!” he says, and Kira’s mouth forms a shy little smile.

“Really?” she asks. “All the wolves say it looks weird.”

“It doesn’t,” Scott assures her.

Jackson comes in then, spots them, and pushes a total of four people out of his way during the five feet it takes him to reach them. Stiles rolls his eyes at this, but bites his tongue before any kind of comment can roll of it. He’s an emissary, he has to be civil.

The first twenty minutes of their conversation is surprisingly peaceful. Stiles zones out for most of it, since most of it is talk about which pack is going to be where in the full moon and what happens if threats come, and, of course, the usual talk of ‘don’t touch the Argents’ that Scott always has to have with visiting packs. Alliances with hunters isn’t exactly common among werewolves.

He zones back in when the talking has dialed down, and is just in time for Jackson to say,

“I want Lydia back.”

Scott’s eyes flash red again, this time in warning, and Stiles barks out a laugh without humour. He turns to Scott and says sarcastically,

“Gee, Scott, did you miss when Lydia apparently became a toy to be tossed around and fought over? Because I sure as hell seemed to.”

Jackson looks unimpressed. “Lydia comes over to my pack, or no deal.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “No.”

Jackson’s lip curls. “She’s my beta.”

“No,” Scott cuts in, “she’s mine. You bit her, and that’s all you did. She’s Stiles’ mate, and she’s my beta, and she chose my pack. Like Stiles said, she’s not some negotiation tool. We’re not going to give her to you like she’s a chew toy.”

Kira’s watching them all with wide eyes, like she doesn’t quite believe this is actually happening.

“Jackson,” she says quietly, “Maybe you should just wait a while.”

Jackson rolls his eyes. “And what, see if I can win her back?”

Stiles raises an eyebrow at them both. “Do you not get, mates, like at all?”

Jackson bares his teeth at Stiles, but Kira admits easily,

“Not really. Danny and Ethan don’t really do anything, you know, special. That stands out.”

“Well if they’re really mated, then most things wouldn’t stand out,” Scott says. “You can sense each other’s emotions, have a feel of their general location when you’re separated. It’s almost like another presence in your head, but without thoughts.”

“Like the pack bond,” Kira says, and Scott nods.

“They’re it for life,” Stiles adds, staring Jackson down. “No one else. Even if your mate dies, there’s never going to be anyone else.”

“Whatever,” Jackson says.

“If they’re right, though,” Kira says, trailing off.

Jackson turns to her, eyes red, although the rest of his face remains impassive and unimpressed. She shifts back, even as she inches a hand backwards towards the wall. Stiles follows her hand’s path to an outlet. It stops before she can do anything, however, instead hovering just above all the electricity she needs.

“Back off,” she advises.

Jackson opens his mouth enough to show her his fangs, for a moment, but he stands down and lets them and the red in his eyes fade away. She smiles cheerfully at him, and lets her hand drop to her cup.

“If they’re right,” Kira says again, bringing her cup up to her lip, “maybe we should just go.” She doesn’t take her eyes off of Jackson while she drinks.

“I’m good with this,” Stiles informs everyone. “Anyone totally good with this?”

Scott obviously agrees with him, but he tries to keep a straight face on principle.

“Fine,” Jackson says finally. “I agree to your terms.” Then he gets up and walks out of the coffee shop without looking back.

“One last thing,” Kira says before they can get up too. “The two packs have to meet and agree with the alpha and emissary’s decision of an alliance.”

“Not sure I would call this an alliance,” Stiles mutters. “You’re right though. What’d you do, read the how-to guide on being an emissary?”

He can see Scott giving him one of his classic ‘Stiles what the hell’ looks out of the corner of his eye, but Kira just shrugs. “Sort of. I Googled it.”

And Stiles has to laugh at that. “Why the hell are you in his pack?” he asks, because Kira really seems to be the opposite of Jackson.

Kira sighs. “I’ve been friends with Danny since our second year of college, when Lydia was still around.  I didn’t really ever get to know her, though. Danny brought me home with him one year during winter break, because my mom decided to wait until—well, pretty much now, since this was just this past year—to actually tell me everything about being a Kitsune. As in, the ‘I’m going to live to around 900’ part. Jackson had just added the twins to his pack. Ethan mated with Danny, but Danny didn’t want to join the pack,” she explains. “I told Jackson what I was so he’d let me in so Danny wouldn’t be alone.”

“That’s really nice of you,” Scott says, sounding pleasantly surprised. Stiles guesses he isn’t the only one who thought Jackson’s douchebaggery would translate into the rest of his pack.

Kira shrugs again. “Danny’s a good person. I think he’s mostly just stuck around Jackson this long out of loyalty. Apparently the three of them have been friends for years, grew up together.”

“Three as in, Lydia, Jackson, and Danny,” Stiles clarifies, and Kira nods.

“Jackson’s not all that bad to his pack, though, even though some of them are as bad as he is,” Kira says, and then drains what’s left of her coffee. She stands, tosses her cup in the trash. She turns back to them with a sly smile and hands Scott his phone back. He takes it with a stunned expression.

“My number’s in there to set up the pack meet-up,” she says, and then turns around and walks out after Jackson.

“Freaking trickster spirits,” Stiles mutters.

“How the hell did she get that?” Scott asks, looking down at his phone and back up at the door Kira left through.

“Probably nicked it when you sat down,” Stiles says. “S’what I would’ve done.”

Scott gives him one of his looks. Stiles holds his hands up in surrender. “Whatever. We gonna go or what?”

It’s not until they’re in the jeep, driving back home, that Stiles finally says what they’re both thinking. “You know the pack’s never going to agree to letting them stay here, right?” He pauses. “I don’t agree with letting them here.”

Scott sighs. “Let’s see how they react first.” He knows Stiles is right, though.

Stiles parks the jeep outside of the house, turns off the engine. Neither of them get out.

“Who has to tell them?” Stiles asks.

“You should tell Lydia,” Scott says after a moment of silence.

“Which means I’ll be telling everyone, because they’ll all be in the same room,” Stiles finishes when Scott doesn’t want to. “Nice cop-out, there dude.”

They walk inside together. The pack’s all waiting in the living room for them, having heard the jeep pull up.

“How’d it go?” Lydia asks from where she’s sitting beside Allison, her hands curled into tight fists around the fabric of her skirt.

Stiles doesn’t speak until he’s crouched in front of her, gently prying the fists of her hands open an curling his own hands around them. Then he says,

“Surprisingly well. He has a Kitsune as his emissary.”

Her eyebrows rise in surprise, because she’s spent the past months leafing through bestiaries, and of course she knows what Kitsunes are.

“That’s rare,” Derek says from his place leaning against the doorway into the kitchen. “Kitsunes, I mean.”

Stiles looks at him with surprise. “How the hell do you know about Kitsunes?”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Do I have to remind everyone that I grew up in a family full of werewolves?” he says.

“Yup,” Allison deadpans. “We always forget. We never listen. Never once.”

Derek glowers at her.

“Who?” Lydia asks.

“Kira,” Scott tells her. Lydia’s eyebrows go higher up her forehead.

“Moving on,” Cora prompts.

“Right,” Stiles says, and grips Lydia’s hands a little tighter. “The packs have to meet before any kind of agreement is made.”

“Kira seemed really nice,” Scott chips in before anyone can say anything. Lydia, like most of the pack, is just staring at Stiles in shock.

“Even if she stole your phone for a while there?” Stiles asks.

“Dude, you’ve stolen my phone,” Scott retorts.

“True,” Stiles muses, “and Allison’s a few times. And Coach’s.”

“I’m mated with a kleptomaniac,” Lydia mutters.

“What happens if we don’t agree with each other?” Isaac asks.

Stiles, as much as he doesn’t feel like talking right now, knows he has to answer, because knowing this is literally his job as an emissary and not even Scott knows what happens in that situation.

“If the packs don’t agree, then the final decision goes to the alpha of the territory. If his or hers is negative, the opposing alpha can either choose to accept it and leave, or go against it.”

“And what happens if they go against it?” Allison asks.

Stiles sighs again, looking at each of his pack briefly before settling on Scott. “Then it’s a fight. And with Jackson, I’d say ‘to the death’ has a place in that phrase.”

Scott’s face looks pinched, and tired, but he just nods.

“He’s going to fight,” Lydia says, quietly enough that if Stiles and Allison both weren’t so close to her they probably wouldn’t be able to hear her, but unwavering all the same. “He came here for me.”

“And he’s not going to get you,” Stiles says, her words and movements suddenly fierce as he lets go of her hands to take his face in his hands. He straightens his legs a little so that he’s eye level with her, close enough to her face that she can feel him breathe on every exhale. “If he wants a fight, he’ll get one, and he’ll lose one. You hear that?”

She looks so small and fragile, his hands dwarfing her face. Her eyes wide. He says it again, even fiercer. “Do you get that, Lydia? You are ours. You are _mine._ ”

She nods beneath his grasp, and surges forward until her lips are pressed against his.

Their kiss only lasts a few seconds, because the rest of the pack is still in the room and Stiles is pretty sure there’s still stuff that needs to be talked about. His hands are still cupping her face when he pulls away.

“You’re mine too,” she says.

“You bet your cute little ass I am,” he mutters in reply, and she sighs fondly at him.

“Are you done?” Cora says, looking half a second from rolling her eyes.

“Please,” Stiles says. “We aren’t half as bad as Scott and Allison used to be.”

“You were in New York for the past nine months,” Erica points out. “We didn’t see you guys virtually that whole time.”

“True,” Stiles agrees, tilting his head in acknowledgement.

“Lydia, how many are in Jackson’s pack?” Derek cuts in, apparently intent on getting their conversation back on track.

“Not sure,” she says, thinking. “I wasn’t a wolf back then, and some of the people he hung around with weren’t horrible, but some really were, so I’m not sure.”

“Most werewolves, alphas or not, don’t spend much time with anyone besides their pack,” Derek says.

“Danny wasn’t, though,” Lydia says. “And neither was I, so I’m not sure if that applies here.”

“Who was around him a lot?” Scott asks.

Lydia scrunches her face, thinking back. “Aiden,” she says finally.

“And his brother?” Scott guesses.

Lydia nods. “Yeah, Ethan. Who apparently mated with Danny. Hmm.”

 “Who else?” Derek asks.

“Malia always seemed to be around,” she says after a moment of more thinking. “Although she would always help me with my make-up whenever Jackson hit me in the face, so I’m not sure.”

“My dad made me join the lacrosse team,” Isaac says. “As an excuse for all the bruises. So that might’ve just been Jackson making sure no one knew.”

Lydia stares at him with her lips pressed together, and then pats the seat next to her. Allison moves over just as Isaac sits down, and rests his head on her shoulder.

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” he says.

“Yeah,” she says back. It’s quiet for a moment, achingly, before she continues, “So does that mean Malia isn’t good either?”

“Is anyone who has Jackson as an alpha?” Stiles mutters.

“Anyone else?” Allison asks.

“Brandon and Mike have been around since like, our senior year of high school,” Lydia says. “They all went to NYU together, refused to be apart.”

“That was probably when he became an alpha,” Boyd says. “And his first two pack mates.”

“So, what, that’s…eight?” Isaac asks, adding them up. “We still outnumber them, then.”

“Barely,” Cora says.

“Your optimism is so appreciated,” Stiles tells her. She gives him her fakest smile in return.

“Their loyalty seemed to be wavering, though,” Lydia says, chewing on her lip. “I think Danny had been talking to them.”

“About what?” Boyd asks.

Lydia shrugs a little. “About me, I think? Sometimes…” she swallows before continuing in a tight voice, “If Jackson was only angry at me but in a good mood with everyone else, he’d let them,” her hand flutters in the hair vaguely, “join in, I guess I’d put it. I think Danny was starting to convince them what they were doing wasn’t right, and I think they were connecting it back to Jackson.”

Isaac looks like he’s trying not to lose control, as does the majority of the pack. Stiles looks absolutely livid, and she runs a hand through his hair soothingly.

“It’s okay,” she tells them all. “I’m okay.”

“So what do we do now?” Erica asks, intent on changing the subject, for which Lydia is grateful. “Sit around and wait?”

“Well, I have Kira’s number,” Scott says, holding up his phone. “So we can set up the meeting whenever, and wherever.”

“I vote for the random warehouse we spent so much time in when Derek was building the pack,” Erica says.

Derek gives her one of his signature glowering looks. “I thought you’d prefer it over the burned out shell of my family home.”

“Touché.”

“It does seem to be a good place to meet, though,” Boyd points out, “It’s not like we’re going to want their scents all over the Preserve.”

“And I think we’d want the meeting sooner rather than later,” Allison adds. “We’re all going to want to know as soon as possible if this is going to work out or not.”

“Which it’s not,” Stiles mutters. Lydia rests1 her chin on the top of his head.

“So, tomorrow, then?” Scott asks, already tapping at his phone.

“Sounds good,” Stiles says.

They all sleep in the living room that night, tangled up so that it’s impossible to tell when one pack mate ends and the next begins. They’ve had new packs in the area, but none that are ever a big enough issue that they have to be so formal with every meeting, and no one that is actually a real threat to their pack.

Scott texts Kira early the next morning. She surprises those who are up—Scott, Stiles, Boyd, and Erica—by texting back almost immediately, and agrees to his chosen place and time.

“That was weirdly easy,” Stiles says, and yawns.

Scott shrugs. “She seems really nice. Maybe she just doesn’t want to give us anymore trouble,” Scott suggests.

“Or maybe she’s being nice by letting us choose the battleground,” Stiles retorts.

“That shouldn’t even happen tonight though,” Scott says.

“Dude,” Stiles says, pretending to look offended. “Stop bringing me down.”

“Shut up,” Scott says fondly, and cuffs Stiles over the head. Stiles laughs.

“God, you two are worse with each other than you are with your mates,” Cora mutters as she comes into the kitchen. Allison’s behind her, but she’s laughing as she slings an arm across Scott’s shoulders.

“I’ve accepted that Scott will always love Stiles more than me,” Allison says, and kisses Scott’s cheek.

“Besides,” she adds. “No one can compete with his hair.”

“Does look a lot better than the buzzcut,” Isaac says as he comes in.

“Hey!” Stiles protests.

“No buzzcut,” Lydia says, sitting down on Stiles’ lap.

“I’m against this,” Stiles says, sweeping an arm out grandly as a gesture and nearly clotheslining Derek. “Just so everyone knows.”

Lydia hums in reply and starts running her fingers through his hair. He goes practically limp beneath her, and she smirks in victory.

“You love that too much to ever cut your hair,” she says.

“That’s true,” he murmurs, completely content to be petted.

“We’re meeting Jackson’s pack at one,” Scott says, since everyone’s now awake. “It’s just talking today, remember that.”

Lydia scoffs. “As if Jackson ever needed permission to throw a punch.”

Over half of the room’s occupants frown at her, but she doesn’t elaborate.

“So we’ll head down there around 12:30?” Scott continues. “Get ourselves ready before they get there?”

Everyone agrees, and they all head upstairs to get ready.

By the time everyone’s showered and dressed and made-up, it’s just past eleven, because there’s no clock in the living room besides those on phones and the TV, so there’s no real alarm to set, which lead to them waking up late. Stiles and Lydia make a quick lunch for everyone, and then they’re off to the warehouse.

By the time Jackson and the rest of his pack show up, they’re ready. And by ready, Stiles means ‘all placed strategically.

They’re in what is a really loose V shape. Scott’s at the head of it, closest to the door. Stiles is right next to him, with Lydia and Allison just behind and beside them. Next, there’s Derek after Allison, and Cora after Lydia, because the Hale name still carries weight even now. Then, there’s Isaac after Cora, and Boyd and Erica after Derek. It’s a loose enough shape that there’s at least three feet between each person, besides the first four of them. Some of them, like Erica, are sprawled lazily against walls or posts. The point of it is to look intimidating, showing off the large number of pack members they have.

Despite looking relaxed, there are prepared if a fight does break out. Allison has her smallest crossbow in the purse slung over her shoulder, and Stiles has his usual .45 revolver—a birthday gift from his dad the year he found out about werewolves and all the other supernatural shit in Beacon Hills—tucked into the back of his jeans.

When there’s a knock at the door and Scott goes to get it, Lydia reaches forward and grabs Stiles’ hand. He doesn’t look back at her, but he runs his thumb in soothing circles over her hand, again and again. He does his best to be calm, so that all she’s getting from him is comfort and a steady feeling of being calm.

Scott comes back into first, with Jackson and his pack behind him. Behind Jackson is Kira, and behind her are another four people. Lydia was right about Brandon and Mike leaving, then. One of them is Danny, and he’s walking closely to one of the two twins, so Stiles guesses that’s Ethan and the other is Aiden. Coming up behind them is a girl with brown curls and a walk that would fit right in with an explosion behind it.

She sees Lydia and Stiles standing together, rakes her eyes down Stiles’ body, and flashes Lydia a somewhat feral smile.

“You picked a good one,” the girl, who Stiles guesses is Malia, says to Lydia. “He’s cute.”

Lydia snaps her teeth, and Malia laughs and walks to Jackson’s side.

“If you get her,” she stage-whispers into his ear. “I want him.”

“No,” Stiles says, and doesn’t even try to bring his voice down. Malia’s smile drops a little, and Lydia’s widens.

“So, we just, talk to each other?” Danny asks.

Kira shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Hey, um,” Allison says, moving forward a little. “Is that a katana?”

Kira automatically half-lifts a hand to the sword strapped to her back. “Yeah,” she says, and a smile starts forming at the edges of her mouth. “I mean, I think so. It was a gift from my mom.”

“It looks really cool,” Allison says, and her eyes have that glint in them they always do whenever she sees a new weapon. “Can I see it?”

Kira smiles wider, and she says, “Yeah, sure,” and then reaches back and pulls it out.

“That is awesome,” Allison says, and runs her hand over the blade oh so gently.

Stiles is so focused on the awe on Allison’s face that he isn’t even aware of Jackson walking over to the two of them until he’s right in front of them. Scott’s joined Allison with talking to Kira, Derek’s talking to one of the twins, Erica is having what might be considered a pleasant conversation with Malia, and Isaac and Boyd are talking with the other two, Danny and probably Ethan.

Which means that whatever’s going to happen between the three of them, unless it gets really out of hand, will go unnoticed and unwatched.

Great, Stiles thinks idly. Just what he needed.

“You know, I’m surprised,” Jackson says. “Usually alphas don’t let their newest wolves out to play.”

“I have good control,” Lydia says, coming up from behind Stiles to stand beside him. Her chin is raised, and her eyes are steel. “Plus, Scott isn’t a controlling asshole that orders his betas around.”

Jackson sneers at her. “I didn’t see you complaining about not being in control.” He drops his voice, which might have made the conversation more private if they weren’t in a room full of werewolves. “All those times I made you scream.”

“Maybe that’s because I didn’t want to end up in the hospital more than I already was,” Lydia growls, stalking towards Jackson with her eyes glowing.

“Okay, whoa,” Stiles says, and gets in between them. He puts his back to Jackson, completely unconcerned. “Lyds, calm down.”

Lydia doesn’t look at him, just growls again at Jackson over Stiles’ shoulder. He reaches out to her, though, wraps his fingers around her forearm, and immediately, her eyes are fading back to their usual brilliant green. They flutter closed for a second, and she takes a deep breath. When she opens them again, they’re clear again, alert and bright. She smiles at Stiles.

They have the attention of most members of each pack now, Stiles is pretty sure. But he doesn’t give a damn when Jackson says from behind him,

“Should’ve known you liked a gentler touch. I mean, you’re with a fucking human now.” He scoffs. “So, who tops, by the way?”

Stiles blows a breath out through his nose, trying to calm himself down for a second before he realizes it’s not worth it. And in one fluid motion, Stiles turns and punches Jackson in the face.

The alpha crumples, and once on the ground Stiles puts a simple spell over him to keep him there.

“This human,” Stiles says,and now he’s pretty much growling too, “has seen more than you’re ever going to want to, and has fucking magic on his side. Do _not_ talk about Lydia like that.”

He waits until blood drips off of knuckles and onto Jackson’s not-quite-yet healed nose before backing away, towards the door.

“You coming?” he asks Lydia, and she nods and reaches for his uninjured hand.

“Sorry,” Stiles adds as they pass Scott. He doesn’t reply.

He lets out a hiss of pain whenever he tries to curl his hand around the steering wheel, so Lydia drives the jeep for him. It’ll be a little awkward when everyone else wants to leave and there’ll be only one car for seven people, but they’ll manage.

“I can’t believe you punched Jackson in the face,” Lydia says, trying to be stern, but she can’t quite keep the laughter out of her voice.

“Yeah, well,” Stiles says, flexing his hand and watching more blood slip down his fingers. “Someone had to.”

“I can take care of myself,” Lydia says.

“You sound like Allison,” Stiles comments. Adds a bit quieter, “And I know you can. I just want you to know that you don’t always have to.”

Lydia waits until they’re parked outside the house to kiss him.

She helps him wrap up his knuckles in one of the upstairs washrooms, even though he tells her multiple times he can do it himself. Once she’s done fussing, they head downstairs to watch TV and wait for the rest of the pack.

They’ve gotten through two episodes of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix when everyone else comes back. No one looks especially happy or pissed off, which Stiles is pretty sure is a plus.

“How’d it go?” Stiles asks, pausing the TV.

Allison shrugs and flops down onto the couch next to him. “Jackson spent the last hour sulking in a corner and growling at literally anyone who came within ten feet, so it was a little tense, but not bad.” She reaches into the bowl of popcorn sitting on his lap, chews. “I don’t think they can stay though.”

“Not with Jackson acting the way he is,” Scott agrees.

 “Some of his pack are okay,” Isaac says. “But the rest of them are as bad as he is.”

“Did you tell him anything?” Stiles asks, leaning back so he’s looking at Scott upside down.

Scott shakes his head. “I told him I’d tell him my decision the next time we meet.”

“Which is when?” Stiles shoots back.

Scott lifts his phone in answer, and as if on cue, it starts to ring. “I didn’t plan that,” Scott says, sounding adorably confused, before putting it on speaker so everyone can hear. “Hello?”

“Scott?” It’s Kira on the other end, and she sounds nervous but angry. “Can we talk? Like, not on the phone? Sometime soon?”

Scott looks to Stiles, who shrugs. “Sure,” Scott says carefully. “Um, does now work?”

“Yeah,” Kira says. “Danny has the address.”

She hangs up without another word.

“What the hell?” Erica blurts into the silence that follows.

“I have no idea,” Scott says. He’s still staring at his phone like it will start giving him answers to the questions he has.

They don’t have to wait long, because not ten minutes later Scott’s letting Kira and Danny inside. Kira, who looks like she’s fighting not breaking something, and Danny, who has a bruise blossoming across the length of his jaw on one side.

Lydia’s off the couch before she’s even completely aware of what she’s doing. She places a hand gingerly over the bruise, and her veins bleed black. It’s not the first time she’s done this, not by a long shot. She used to take plane rides up to Quebec almost once a month, lay with Allison in bed with a hand on her stomach until her cramps were gone and Allison could sleep.

“Jackson?” Lydia asks grimly.

Danny nods. Takes her hand off his face so he can see her properly, look her in the eye. “I am so fucking sorry I lead him here to you.”

Lydia just blinks at him in shock, but she hugs back when he wraps his arms hesitantly around her waist.

“It’s okay,” she says finally, into his shoulder. “I mean, besides you the only person who’s gotten punched is Jackson.”

Danny laughs and pulls away. Looking at Stiles, he says, “That was awesome.”

Stiles laughs and Scott groans. “Don’t encourage him,” he pleads.

“You’re no fun,” Stiles tells his best friend.

“Why, because I’m sane?” Scott retorts.

“Yes.”

“Boys,” Allison says, although she’s trying not to laugh at them. She turns to Kira. “What’d you want to talk about?”

Kira takes a deep breath, and says, “We want to leave Jackson’s pack. He’s horrible, and he’s never going to change. What he said to Lydia and hitting Danny proves that. We’re done trying to deal with him and getting a bad reputation being with him.”

Scott jumps over the back of the couch and leans against it so he’s facing the two of them. “So what, you want to join ours?”

Kira’s eyes widen in surprise. “We wanted to ask if you’d help us with getting away from Jackson and maybe finding a new pack, because Ethan’ll go wherever Danny does—” she stops, stares. “Are you serious?”

Scott looks around at each of his pack quickly, doesn’t see or hear or even feel any kind of objection. He focuses back on Kira, shrugs. “We all pretty much agreed that you two were decent, and probably the twins too, but that the rest were too much of an issue for you to stay.”

“So you’d be willing…to have us in the pack,” Kira says slowly.

“I think we’d do more of a trial period thing,” Stiles says, from where he’s now standing next to Scott, having also climbed over the couch. “But you guys already seem to kinda fit in.”

A few of the pack nod in agreement, but Danny furrows his brow and says,

“How?”

Stiles raises an eyebrow at him. “Dude, you and Lydia have apparently been friends for like, ever, Kira and Allison probably spent the whole time talking weapons…”

“Not the whole time,” Allison defends. “Most of it, though.” She shares a smile with Kira.

“And  we’re not exactly in the interest of splitting up a mated pair,” Scott finishes Stiles’ thoughts.

“We have the space, too,” Boyd points out.

“I thought there was only one guest room,” Lydia says.

“There are two, actually,” Isaac says.

“And Allison had her own room for about three seconds before she moved into Scott’s with him,” Derek adds.

“Let me call Ethan,” Danny says, taking out his phone. “He was trying to convince Aiden Jackson was bad news when we left. I don’t know if it was working.”

It isn’t, as it turns out, which they’re all told once Ethan shows up.

“I might’ve been able to with more time,” Ethan says, sounding sad. “But we don’t have it. Not with Jackson acting how he is. And Malia’s just feeding it.”

“This will probably still end in a huge fight,” Scott says, and Danny slips his hand into Ethan’s. “Would you be willing to fight him? Them?”

Ethan takes one look at the bruise on Danny’s jaw, and all uncertainty clears off his face. “Completely.”

“Okay,” Scott says, just like that. He nods, and the three of them all nod back.

“You realize that now we have no way to contact his pack without rousing suspicion.”

“Please,” Kira says, taking out her phone and starting to rapidly type. “All I need is a spark and he’s down.”

Stiles can’t help it; he snaps his fingers, and a spark ignites and dances for a moment where his fingers connect before fizzling out again. Kira laughs.

“You and I are going to have fun together,” she says. She puts her phone away, continues to Scott, “Text me when you want to meet up.”

“What are you going to do?” Scott asks.

“Wait,” Kira says. “And take his guard down. Be ready with that spark,” she adds to Stiles. She grabs Danny by the hand, who in turn brings Ethan with him, and guides them towards the door. “See you guys soon!”

An hour later, Kira texts Scott telling them to meet them all back at the warehouse again tomorrow.

“Do you really think that wasn’t a trick?” Derek asks Scott.

He shrugs. “We’ll find out tomorrow, I guess.”

“So we have nothing to do until then?” Stiles asks.

“Yeah,” Allison agrees.

“Okay,” Stiles says, and gets up from the couch, taking Lydia up with him by their clasped hands.

“Where are we going?” Lydia asks.

“Out,” Stiles replies. “Because I just realized we haven’t gone out on an actual date since New York, because I’ve been so busy with Deaton, which is totally unfair.” He presses a kiss to her lips. “Get your coat.”

Lydia glances back to Scott, as if to ask if it’s really okay, but Scott’s just smiling at the two of them. Allison’s is wider, and she mouths, ‘Have fun’ at her when she catches Lydia’s eye.

Lydia rolls her eyes as she slips into heels and allows her boyfriend—mate, partner, everything—to pull her out the door, his jacket on and hers hung over his other arm.

“So where are we going?” Lydia asks, even though she knows the answer.

Stiles knows she knows too, because he just gives her a knowing look and tosses her jacket at her so that it lands on her face. She whips it off her head, and glares, points with the hand still clutching the leather of it. “If you messed up my hair, I’m going to kill you.”

“Only a little,” Stiles teases, and reaches across the gearshift of the jeep once they’re seated to fix the hair that is, apparently, sticking straight up. Lydia groans and flops over onto the dashboard. Feels more hair get pulled down by gravity.

“You’re the worst,” she says, lurching forward a little as Stiles pulls out of the driveway. She hastens to put on her seatbelt before they get to the rough parts of the forest road.

Their dates go like this: dinner at one of their favourite restaurants, a movie, and then dessert at someplace different than where they ate dinner. In New York, favourite restaurants included an Indian place a few blocks from their apartment, a burger joint that was a twenty minute ride away in a taxi, without traffic (which was never), but _always_ worth it, and a tiny restaurant squeezed in between a tattoo parlor and a jewelry store, which never failed to have amazing food, and the wait staff were always cool to them. In Beacon Hills, it’s a diner near the edge of town, with guaranteed grease and good food.

Lydia loves it, even though it’s the exact opposite of her, and she missed it.

They sit in a corner booth and play footsie and talk about things that are no way related to Jackson or the rest of his pack, and it’s great. She gets ketchup on the side of her mouth and can’t lick it off to save her life, so Stiles leans across the table and ends up squishing half of his curly fries under his hand by accident. He compensates by eating Lydia’s, and then has to order a side of onion rings for the both of them so that she’ll forgive him.

At the movie theater, they buy tickets to a movie that’s starting in less than five minutes and that, according to Lydia, who’s listening to the heartbeats in the theater, has only three other people set to watch it. They buy a bag of Twizzlers to bribe Cora with later and make-out in the back corner; Stiles has his hand under Lydia’s shirt for most of the two hours they’re there. Lydia’s hand is lower down is his clothes.

After a stop in the theater’s washroom for Lydia to fix her—well, everything—and for Stiles to wipe lipstick off of his face and adjust his hair and pants, they head to an ice cream shop that’s open 24 hours and has the best ice cream in California.

“I used to come here with my mom,” Stiles says when they walk in.

“Yeah?” Lydia replies, tightening her hand in his.

He nods. “She knew the owner. We’d always come on Thursdays, ‘cause it was her day off.”

The owner remembers him, as it turns out, and they end up getting Stiles’ bubblegum ice cream in a waffle cone and Lydia’s mint chocolate swirl in a bowl for half-price. It’s a surprisingly warm night for December, so they decide to go out to the park that’s really just grass and a swing set about a block away.

They’re halfway through their ice cream—and smearing it across each other’s noses and licking it off—when things go a little, well, horrible.

“Jesus,” Stiles half-yells when he spots Jackson, jumping so hard he almost falls on the ground. What’s left of his ice-cream isn’t nearly as lucky, instead becoming one with the gravel.

“What are you doing here, Jackson?” Lydia says, standing and putting herself between him and Stiles. Whether it’s on purpose or accidental, Stiles isn’t sure, but he stays behind her even when he stands up anyway.

“You guys are sickeningly cute, you know that?” Jackson says, like she didn’t say anything. “I thought Malia was going to puke in that theater, seriously.”

Stiles groans inwardly. Three heartbeats; Jackson, Malia, and Aiden.

Lydia’s eyes narrow, and Stiles knows she’s figured it out too. “You’ve been watching us.”

“All night,” he agrees. “I sent the other two home a while ago, though. Something about my pack trying to switch…” he waves a hand in the air vaguely, squinting as if he’s confused. He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter now.”

Out of nowhere, Jackson backhands Lydia hard enough she goes flying sideways in the opposite of the swing set, crumpling to the ground almost out of Stiles’ line of vision.

“Lydia!” Stiles yells, but before he can take a step toward, Jackson has a hand around his wrist. He has a tight enough grip that Stiles can feel his bones shifting, _aching,_ and every—futile—struggle makes it hurt even more. He wonders if that he was a werewolf, would he be able to hear the bones cracking right now too?

“Not so fast, Stilinski,” Jackson says, smirking at him. “You know, Malia isn’t a werewolf.”

“Good for her,” Stiles snarks, and swings his free hand at Jackson’s face.  The alpha catches it easily, then drops it, twists Stiles backwards until he’s pressing his arm into his back. Stiles grits his teeth against both the new pain and that which is in his wrist sharpening into near blinding, doesn’t make a sound. Waits for Jackson to shift his arm just enough for his shoulder to dislocate. He’s not stupid; he knows what Jackson’s up to.

“She’s a werecoyote,” Jackson continues, completely at ease. “Tragic, really. Her first time shifting, she was responsible for the death of her mother and sister and stayed as a real coyote—four feet and a tail and everything—for eight years. She didn’t know how to turn back and forth.”

“Story time is usually a lot more fun when I’m not in pain,” Stiles says through his teeth. There’s a sickening pop, the one he knew was coming, and he can’t smother the groan he lets out. Jackson lets him fall to the ground, and he rolls onto his back, awkwardly cradles his dislocated arm to his chest with his other one.

“When I brought her back to a human, I got her help,” Jackson says. “Someone, I can’t remember who now, since I killed them after,” Jackson laughs a little, “to teach her. Taught her some other stuff.” Jackson leans down, puts his hands on his thighs for balance. “Like how some things are just as bad to druids and sorcerers, both of which you pretty much are, funnily enough,” he chuckles quietly, again, and Stiles is really failing on finding any of this funny, “as they are to werewolves.”

“Mistletoe,” Stiles says quietly.

“Exactly,” Jackson says, and now he’s smiling, the fucker. From his pocket, he pulls out a vial of yellow powder. Dumps it all over Stiles’ face.

His immediate reaction is to cough, which is useless, because every time he coughs he has to breathe in again, and there’s more coming in through both his nose and mouth, and it’s _everywhere_. Just when he’s decided this really can’t get worse, Jackson steps on his face, and _ew_ , Stiles really didn’t want to hear his own nose breaking, thanks.

“Son of a bitch,” he says, shaking his head back and forth to dislodge some of it, and then kicks upwards. He takes a sick kind of pleasure in the knowledge he totally just nailed Jackson in the crotch, judging by the way he doubles over.

It gives Stiles enough time to get his good arm into the bottom of his pant leg and his hand around the handle of the wolfsbane coated knife he’s been walking around with since Jackson’s pack came into town.

When he sits up, the world blurs, but he still manages to stab Jackson in the thigh. He howls, and Stiles takes out the knife—hey, he likes it, okay—and shoves Jackson to the side just as Lydia comes running up.

“Shit,” she says when she sees Stiles, feels the full force of his pain. She puts her hands on his chest, leeches out pain, but more just replaces it.

“I’m okay,” he says, even though he’s not and his voice comes out nasally and he has to stop to cough and all that comes up is blood that’s dripped down his throat from his nose and powdered mistletoe.

“I don’t know how to set a dislocated shoulder,” Lydia whispers, hands fluttering uselessly over where his arm is dangling loosely. “I can do your nose, though.”

Stiles chokes—literally—on a laugh. “Why do you know how to set a broken nose?”

Her hands have taken to fluttering in front of his face. Their jittery movements are making him dizzy, and he’s glad he’s on the ground, or else he probably would’ve fallen over by now.

“One of Jackson’s exes came by once,” she tells him. “I had to set it for her.” She sets a hand on his neck, fingers splaying up and around to his cheek and to his hairline, takes more pain while she’s there, grabs his face with the other. “Ready?”

He shrugs as best he can, steels himself. “Go for it,” he tells her.

Stiles is pretty sure the pain of setting a broken nose is just as bad as breaking it was, but Lydia’s still leeching out pain, so he’s not sure. While he lays on the grass and catches his breath, she deals with Jackson.

Lydia’s dress, now freshly stained with blood, flutters around the tops of her thighs when she leans over Jackson. Stiles sees blood drying on the back of her neck when her hair shifts to fall over her face, and his stomach lurches again.

Jackson’s gaze is glazed over with pain when he looks up at her.

“The only number any of us have of your pack is Kira’s,” Lydia says sweetly. “And I really don’t think she’ll be interested in coming to find you in time to contradict that wolfsbane running through your system. Have a good night.” She leans closer, grabs his chin so he’s forced to look at her. “Don’t come near me, Stiles, or the rest of my pack again,” she says, eyes glowing gold. The she walks back to Stiles.

There’s some difficulty getting him into the jeep, because every move he makes jostles his shoulder and makes it _scream_ , but they manage it. Lydia drives like a wild woman all the way back home.

They’re barely in the Preserve when Scott comes tearing down the road, running at full speed. He’s clearly noticed something’s wrong. Lydia stops the jeep just as Scott wrenches the passenger side of the jeep open.

“Do not hurt Roscoe,” Stiles protests, but it’s weak.

“What the hell happened?” Scott asks, and he can’t quite keep his eyes brown or his voice steady. His gaze flicks to Lydia’s face to Stiles’ blood and mistletoe coated one, the wrist he’s holding that’s attached to a dangling arm.

“Jackson’s a fucking douchebag,” Stiles replies. “Lydia doesn’t know how to set a dislocated shoulder but does know how to set a broken nose. My wrist might be broken, Lydia’s completely healed—don’t think I didn’t see the blood on your neck and in your hair, Lyds, because I did—and Jackson’s slowly dying from wolfsbane poisoning in the park by the ice cream shop. How was your night?”

“Jesus _fuck,_ Stiles,” Scott replies.

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, sagging into the leather of the seat he rarely occupies. “Go let Allison know, okay? Or Derek, since he probably knows how to set a dislocated shoulder too.”

“Got it,” Scott says, with one more quick glance at each of them before taking off towards the house again. He closes the door as he goes, which is good, because Stiles isn’t sure he’d be able to close it.

Lydia takes off after him.

Isaac’s holding the door open for them with a grim face, but no one’s there to help Stiles. He knows why; they’ve all been around Scott and Allison enough to know that when a wolf’s mate is hurt, you get between them and you die.

Allison’s waiting for them at the kitchen table, a mask of grim determination on her face that doesn’t do anything to dislodge the worry in her eyes. It lessens some when she sees Stiles, sees he doesn’t look as bad as he could, going against an alpha werewolf alone—Lydia wishes she could’ve helped, but at least now she knows Stiles can take care of himself.

They have to go through the kitchen to get to the dining room the quickest. Stiles stops when they’re next to the sink, coughs more mistletoe into it.

“Fucking mistletoe,” he groans, and lets Lydia lead him to the table. She helps him onto to it, too, when Allison asks her too.

“This is going to hurt,” she tells him frankly.

Stiles tries to snort; it doesn’t work. “Lydia just set my nose in a fucking park,” he tells her. “I don’t really care, Alli.”

She presses her lips together, nods. “Scott,” she says. “Steady him.”

“You can tell me about the mistletoe later,” Scott says when he comes up to do just that.

“Contradicts darachs, druids, sorcerers, any kind of magic user,” Stiles tells him, even though Scott definitely said later. “Jackson shoved it down my throat and nose. With his foot. S’how my nose broke.”

Allison takes hold of his arm, braces her other hand on his collarbone. “Derek,” she says, turning before she can do anything. “Grab Lydia, would you? I don’t want her doing anything.”

Derek nods, and Lydia doesn’t protest when he wraps his strong arms around her torso and arms alike.

Allison watches as he does, and then turns back to Stiles. “Brace yourself,” she advises. She grabs his wrist, and Lydia feels another wave of pain when she does, but nothing about him suggests it. Allison bends his arm, and pushes backwards.

They all hear the pop as it’s relocated, but it’s nearly drowned out by Stile’ shout. He sags back against Scott when Allison lets him go, takes his wrist and cradles it to his chest.

“Thanks,” he wheezes to Allison, and she smiles. Derek lets Lydia go, and Scott passes Stiles over to her hold without complaint, though he hovers. The whole pack is hovering, for that matter.

“What happened to your wrist being possibly broken?” she murmurs, and he hisses when she touches it. There’s already and ugly bruise forming.

“Shit, Stiles, I’m sorry,” Allison says, and Scott reaches out to comfort her on instinct.

“S’okay,” Stiles says. “Needed to be done.”

“You should really go to the hospital,” Scott says.

“Probably,” Stiles agrees. He opens his eyes from where he’s been resting his head on Lydia’s shoulder, looks at Scott with eyes that are dead serious. “But I’m not going to.”

Scott hold his gaze for a beat. Then he sighs, nods.

“You’re not going to argue with him?” Lydia asks, incredulously.

Scott shrugs. “Stiles doesn’t like hospitals.”

“The meds are nice,” Stiles says, letting his eyes close again. “Memories are not.”

Scott’s mouth quirks up. “Didn’t we meet in a hospital?”

“Technically, we met outside of one,” Stiles points out. “We just learned each other’s names inside.”

“Fine,” Scott relents, and comes to sit next to them. Bumps his leg against Stiles’. “Mind if I call my mom?”

Stiles waves his good hand around, his way of telling Scott to go for it. “Make sure she brings a sling. And a brace.”

“What happened?” Cora finally asks. “Since it’s driving everyone insane.”

Stiles has to tell them, because Lydia spent most of past out. He knows she feels guilty about that, can feel the unease about leaving him alone against Jackson, and does his best to ease her mental anguish.

“So, Jackson’s slowly bleeding out in a park in town,” Isaac says for confirmation when Stiles is done. When Stiles nods, he continues, “You might want to tell your dad about that.”

Stiles shrugs. “It’s a small enough dose that he won’t die for a while, and by that point Malia or Aiden will have found him. He’ll be fine.”

“Not that we care,” Lydia adds.

It doesn’t take for Melissa’s shift to end, and she comes by with a sling and an arm brace and a bottle full of pain medication.

“Pills,” she says, and presses them into Stiles’ waiting palm. “One at a time.”

“You’re so freaking awesome,” he tells her, and swallows one dry.

She pokes at his wrist, which now has finger shaped bruises on it. “The bones might be bruised,” she says finally, “but I don’t think anything’s broken.”

“You really should’ve come to the hospital for this,” she adds while she and Lydia get him in the sling. He’s all but gone at this point, pain meds and exhaustion pulling him under.

“Don’t like hospitals,” he mumbles.

“I know you don’t,” Melissa whispers back.

Stiles falls asleep sitting on the table. Derek carries him upstairs with Lydia walking in front of them while Scott hugs his mom.

“Thanks, mom,” he says.

“Anytime,” she says. “And anything, for any of you.” Her face scrunches a little. “Ugh, I’m saying any too much, aren’t I? Whatever.” She shakes her head at herself. “Make sure he takes two a day, as far apart as possible,” she continues, backing towards the door. She lifts a hand in a wave, turns to open the door. “Love you!”

“Love you too,” Scott calls back, as do at least three other voices.

Scott goes upstairs less than three minutes after Derek’s come down, but it’s apparently enough time for Lydia to have taken off Stiles’ clothes, put him in pajamas, and to have changed her dress for one of his shirts so she could curl up with him.

She’s still awake though, tracing patterns on Stiles’ rising and falling chest. Her eyes rise when Scott moves into the doorway, meets his. She smiles, because she knows she isn’t the only one that worries more than anyone else downstairs can even begin to know how to.

Scott smiles back, and shuts the door.

Stiles is the first one up the next morning, along with Lydia, because she slept fitfully and wakes up when Stiles twitches underneath her.  

“You should rest,” she says as he gets up.

“Nope,” he replies. “Now put your werewolf reflexes to good use and help me get dressed.”

She sighs, but does as he asks. It’s surprisingly not that difficult, because Stiles seems to have everything down when it comes to moving when injured. She wonders how often he’s in these sorts of situations. Regardless, they end up downstairs, where Scott has left the bottle of meds for Stiles with a note of instructions.

He ignores them in favour of making eggs for him and Lydia. She admits it’s impressive to watch him crack eggs, mix them, and cook them with only one hand, but she wishes he would just sit. Or maybe take medication.

“I’m fine,” he promises, and kisses her when he leans down to put eggs in front of her. “Swear.”

“I don’t believe you,” she says. “Considering I can feel your pain.”

He makes a face, sticks his tongue out at her.

They’re still the only ones up an hour later, when Scott’s phone starts ringing from where he left it charging in the living room. Stiles catches it just before it goes to voicemail.

“Hello?”

Kira doesn’t seem to particularly care that it’s not Scott she’s talking to. “Sorry, I know it’s early,” she says. “Get everyone up, and meet us in that warehouse of yours in an hour. Jackson’s pissed.”

“Oh, he’s still alive, is he?” Stiles muses. Lydia looks up, and scowls. “Okay. See you then.”

Kira hangs up without another word. “I’m gonna go wake up Scott,” Stiles says, putting the phone back down on the side table.

“I’ll start waking up the others,” Lydia says, and follows him up the stairs.

Allison throws a pillow at him when he wakes them up, but she’s up and getting ready before he’s even fully finished telling them Jackson wants to meet.

Stiles volunteers to wake up Erica so Lydia won’t get attacked at eight in the morning, which she appreciates. He ends up jumping on the bed until Erica falls out of it.

“I’m going to kill you,” she snarls.

“Rule number 5 of pack,” Stiles says, still bouncing lightly, “can’t hit the injured guy.” He moves his injured arm as best he can in the sling, showing it off.

“You’re the worst, Stilinski,” she replies, and he just laughs, aiming his next bounce to push him out the door. It looks totally cool, which is almost worth the fact that he almost face plants in the hallway.

Lydia’s laugh from down the hallway definitely makes it worth it, even if he can still feel the spike of worry that goes through her.

Stiles is already ready, so he sits downstairs on the counter and alternates between trying to make a spark between his fingers when he snaps and trying to levitate things around the kitchen. Everyone but Isaac and Derek are downstairs and ready too by the time he manages a spark.

“Yes!” he crows, almost falling off of the counter when he flails in victory. Lydia laughs and holds out and presses a hand into his hip to steady him. “Fucking Jackson. Fucking mistletoe,” he adds.

“It’s still in your system?” Allison asks, tugging on Converse.

“I woke with it all over my pillow,” Stiles says, screwing up his face in disgust. “So yeah. I have no idea how much he even had. I was kind of out of it.” He hops off the counter. “Someone tell Isaac to stop doing his hair and Derek to stop practicing his scowl in the mirror. We need to go.”

Boyd shows a rare grin, and goes upstairs to get them. Stiles falls over himself getting on his shoes until Lydia finally pushes him over and does them up for him.

He refuses adamantly to give up his jeep keys.

“I can see fine,” he says, holding them above his head so she can’t reach them. “And I’ve driven with one arm before. I broke my arm in eleventh grade.”

“Fine,” Lydia retorts, and presses herself against him, smashing her lips against his. His sound of surprise gets muffled by her mouth. The whole pack is standing in the driveway, probably watching them, but it’s the furthest thing from his mind when Lydia pushes him against the jeep and wraps her hands around his neck, licking into his mouth. He tries not to moan, doesn’t think he does it very well. He brings his hands down to sit on her hips, and she unwraps a hand from his neck to rest against his. And unpry his keys from his fingers.

“Damn it,” he sighs, pulling away and thunking his head back against the hood of the jeep. Lydia smirks, eyes bright and twinkling. She stays close enough long enough for him to adjust his pants, and then flits away, to the driver’s side.

He glares at the members of the pack laughing at him—also known as every one of them—and gets into the passenger side. Scott and Allison—the rest of the pack’s in Derek’s car—are still laughing when they get in the pack.

“Haha, yeah, so funny,” Stiles says, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“Don’t feel bad,” Lydia says, smiling sweetly as she pulls out.

“I was feeling pretty good for a while,” Stiles mutters, and Lydia smirks and Allison laughs again. Scott just reaches forward and pats Stiles’ shoulder sympathetically, like he knows all about girlfriends using their sexuality as an advantage over their boyfriends’ heads.

Okay, so Scott probably knows a lot on that subject.

Jackson’s standing in front of the warehouse door when they pull up, Derek’s Toyota just behind them. His eyes are bloodshot, and when he moves forward he’s limping slightly. Stiles smirks as he gets out of the car.

“Looks like I’m not the only one still hurt,” Stiles says to Allison as she gets out of the jeep behind him, knowing fully well Jackson can hear him.

Allison looks over his shoulder to look at Jackson, the way he’s favouring his leg even standing, and smiles brightly.

“He smells like wolfsbane,” Lydia says, leaning over the hood to stage-whisper to the two of them. “And pain,” she adds. She has a cute little smile on her face, pleased, so Stiles leans over too and kisses her.

Jackson growls, and Stiles doesn’t even get the chance to get up before he says, “Let’s just get this over with,” and awkwardly walks into the warehouse.

The four of them wait for the rest of the pack to get out of the other car before following Jackson inside.

Malia grins when she sees the sling and brace Stiles is wearing. Actually, if anything, she’s baring her teeth at him, he realizes once he’s looked at her for more than a second.

“I think you did more damage than he did,” Malia says to Jackson, tossing an arm through his and looping them, leaning into his side.

“I don’t think a dislocated shoulder can kill someone,” Allison says, narrowing her eyes.

Malia leans forward towards her, her eyes flaring brilliant blue. “Do you wanna see if that’s true or not? I mean, I could always rip yours off. That counts as dislocated, right?”

Allison lifts the crossbow she must’ve grabbed from the back of the jeep, points it at Malia’s face. She has the decency to look, at the very least, apprehensive, and leans back. Allison keeps it where it is.

“What happened to peace between packs?”

“That went to hell when your alpha attacked Stiles and Lydia,” Scott says, stepping forward. “You’re leaving, “ he tells Jackson. “Today.”

Jackson raises an eyebrow. “And if we don’t want to?”

“Then you fight,” Kira says, moving from behind him and crossing easily over the invisible line that’s seemingly been drawn between the packs. “But it won’t be with me.”

“Or me,” Danny says, joining Kira. “You went too far, Jackson.”

Jackson doesn’t look like he believes what’s happening in the slightest, or that he’s bothered by it. “And what, you’re just going to leave Ethan?”

In answer, Ethan walks over to Danny, grabs his hand. “He’s not going to have to,” he says, leaning in and kissing Danny briefly before turning back to what’s left of his previous pack. “But I really don’t want to have to leave my brother, either.”

Aiden sighs, ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck. Blows out a breath, flicks his gaze from Scott to his brother and back. “That’s under the assumption I’d be taken in,” he mutters.

Jackson’s getting madder by the second, but they all ignore him or the moment. Scott turns to Ethan, asks, “Can he be trusted?”

Ethan doesn’t hesitate in nodding. “It takes a while to gain his trust, though,” he admits.

“That’s something I’m willing to do,” Scott says, turns to Ethan’s twin. He gestures with his twin to the space still behind him. “You can join the trial period.”

Jackson looks like he’s been punched, because in the blink of an eye he went from five pack members to one. Every single one of the room members can feel the change, the various pack bonds changing and rippling with new alliances.

“Still up for that fight, Jackson?” Lydia asks, tightening her fingers with Stiles’.

For the first time since she’s known him, almost, Jackson looks uncertain. Malia looks ready to take them all on, but before she can do anything but growl, Jackson starts backing up, tugging her with him.

“We’ll go,” he says, and when he smiles, he’s cocky again, back to what Lydia recognizes. “Nice to see you again, Lydia. Have fun being a bitch.”

“Don’t come back,” Scott says, a threat not-so-concealed in his words.

“Or we’ll kill you,” Derek elaborates.

Jackson just turns and leaves with Malia in tow. Lydia hears car doors open and close, and then an engine starting.

“I want to follow them,” Lydia whispers, doesn’t even realize she’s saying something until she feels eyes on her. “To make sure he leaves.”

Stiles tugs her closer, kisses her hair.

“You’re good?” he asks Scott.

Scott nods, waves them away. “Go ahead. Meet us back at the house.”

“Will do.”

It doesn’t take Lydia much to catch up to Jackson and Malia, because Stiles’ jeep is known by pretty much the whole town and no one would ever pull it over—being the sheriff’s son has perks, okay—so they most of the drive just following. They don’t make much of an effort to hide the fact that they’re following them, either. Stiles even catches Jackson glaring at them a couple of times, and laughs when he does, grinning and waving merrily back.

They keep following until they’re out of town and on the highway, and then slow down and pull over so they can turn around.

“Stiles?” Lydia asks.

“Hmm?”

“Thanks.”

Stiles turns to look at her, brows furrowed. “For what?”

Lydia shrugs, one side of her mouth tugging upwards. “I’d forgotten how horrible Jackson was. I’m never going to forget what he did to me, but I forgot what it felt like, and that’s because of you.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but she crawls over the gearshift and sits in his lap before he can, pressing her lips against his.

They have four new probable pack members at home waiting for them, with Christmas in less than a week, now that Stiles thinks about it, and have spent the past week and a half dealing with Lydia’s psychotic ex-boyfriend from taking away everything they both love.

But with Lydia’s thighs on either side of his, with her hands in his hair and his one on her waist, with her tongue doing _awesome_ things with his own, he really doesn’t give a shit.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be shorter...  
> Let me know what you think! Pretty sure I'm gonna end up doing more in this 'verse, because hey, no one's gone (*sobs*) or dead (*sobs harder*), and mated stydia are the cutest.  
> I'm [dylanodorky](http://dylanodorky.tumblr.com) on tumblr. feel free to come talk, whether it's about this or anything else!  
> Hope you all enjoyed!


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